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Trouble Beneath Our Feet

Canadian Natural Resources Limited workers cleaning up the bitumen spill in 2013 after it seeped up through a fissure at their Primrose oil sand projects north of Cold Lake. Alta. ~ Ed Kaiser/Edmonton Journal

The sun was beginning to set on the farm near Innisfail, a two-hour drive south of Edmonton, when a wellhead suddenly started spewing oil and fracking fluids 20 metres into the air, coating the snowy field and trees in oily mist.

Spring water from deep underground carries plenty of heat and chemicals that feed orange microbial mats growing on the rocks at Larsen Spring, one of nine thermal springs in Northern B.C. and the southern Yukon ~ STEVE GRASBY/GSC

VANCOUVER – The water burbles out of the earth carrying evidence of its underground voyage. It has come from depths of up to five kilometres, bringing plenty of heat, gas and chemicals with it.

Ralph Olson’s home beside the leaking well in Calmar, Alta.~ Edmonton Journall photo

Imperial Oil workers came knocking in Calmar, a small town southwest of Edmonton, looking for old oil and gas wells in 2008. They found one leaking just a metre from the Beaudry home on Evergreen Crescent and took drastic steps to try to stop the gas rising from the deep.